Next Thursday at 10am, there is a meeting for pastors who have a passion for church planting, mission, cultural engagement and God’s Kingdom here in San Diego. They will gather to discuss ways to work together and serve the San Diego community. Items include how the church can contribute in the conversation about San Diego, homeless ministries, homeless teens ministry, international ministry (orphanages, etc.), other ways we can work together and a variety of other information. Post a comment with your email address (it is not displayed publicly) to learn more. (Submit Events info)

You may notice a few changes in how we list San Diego Churches as well as future rankings. Rather than the old 0-5 Star system, we’ve changed the ranking to the recommendation level system. We believe this should more clearly communicate to people reading the site. Our suggestion is people only attend Highly Recommended to Average churches. To be an average church, the minimum requirement is an Evangelical belief (The Bible is true, Jesus is the only way to salvation, etc.).

The second change involves the ranking.

Church Review
Scriptural View:
Beliefs:
Community:

These rankings will now be changed to the following:

Church Review
Scriptural View: What a Church believes, teaches and lives. Do they teach the whole counsel of the Bible? Do they preach exegetically (ie. From the Bible verse by verse, book by book) or topical messages. How do they interpret doctrine.
Missional View: How this church reaches out to the lost. Are they a church that embraces their calling to bear the good news of Jesus Christ? Do they focus on a local and international mission of spreading the Kingdom of God?
Community: Does the church foster community? Do they have elders in place to lead/serve the congregation? How do they counsel people in matters of life, marriage and sin? Is the community called to live what they believe?

We hope these changes assist you as you look for a church to attend. We believe these three criteria are central to a church fulfilling it’s calling as described in the Bible. As always, we appreciate your comments, suggestions and participation in the conversation. (Coming soon… Church Reviews Nationwide at churchreviews.org)

A group went into Donovan prison last weekend to facilitate a prison ministry. For those of you who would like to find an area to serve, we’d encourage you to look into Kairos Prison Ministry. In February, support from 60 churches in the San Diego area as well as national and international participate in the ministry. To find out more go to their website at http://www.kairosprisonministry.org.

The comment function has been down for the last week or two. Sorry for any inconvenience, we believe we have these issues resolved.

Have a Merry Christmas.

San Diego Church Review & Guide is made up of several individuals who believe it is extremely important for non-christians, new believers and mature believers to find a church that is centered on the Bible. Amongst the reviewers we have several pastors, the editor of San Diego Christianity DMOZ, people with Masters in Theology and more.

If you would like to join us and write reviews, please feel free to apply, email: San Diego Churches. There are two criteria to accepting reviews:

(1) You can’t write a review of your home church.
(2) Further, San Diego Churches is not unbiased. Frankly, no one is unbiased. We all have a particular viewpoint in which we decide to value things by. So all applicants will be asked a few questions to help understand these biases. A few biases in which we evaluate churches by.

a) Does the Church believe scripture is true?
b) How do they interpret Scripture?
c) Does the church have a heart of mission both locally, culturally and worldwide?
d) Does the church desire to glorify God and worship Him, rather than people?
e) Does the church have a community that lives out an active involvement and desire to disciple/hold people accountable and grow them?

These areas are the areas in which we value churches. Some people may not agree with these. We would encourage you to add your comments under the churches in which you disagree. We also would encourage you to start your own website to review churches based on the standards you see fit. We recognize some people may be upset with reviews of particular churches. Our desire is not to make people upset but to pursue God and hopefully, the Pastors of these churches will prayerfully consider any areas that are evaluated as settling for less than the Glory of God.

Missional? Is that a Real Word?

A church that is not missional is not really a church. A church exists by mission as the sun exists by burning. When the sun loses its burn it ceases to be the sun. When a church loses its mission, it ceases to be a church. Missional is an adjective describing all of the activities of the church body as they are brought under the mission of God (missio dei) to bring salvation through His Son Jesus Christ.

Jesus said, “The world has hated them [My followers] because they are not of the world, just as I am not of the world. I do not pray that You [God] should take them out of the world, but that You should keep them from the evil one…As You [God] sent Me into the world, I also have sent them into the world” (John 17:14-16, 18; emphasis added).

A missional church understands it has been sent into an irreligious world to proclaim the Gospel of Redemption that is made possible by the Son’s sacrifice for our sins and the Father’s love for us. Every believer is sent into the world by God just as Jesus was sent into the world.